We Remain
by LongLiveTheNerds
Summary: Nothing was ever fair in this world. Why did Cleo, of all people, have to be the one left alive? She wanted to die but something always stopped her. But without her loved ones and family, was life still worth living? However, one night in the woods, all her negative thoughts changed when a certain redneck came to save her from her own death. Daryl/OC


**Author's note:**

Welcome to my first ever TWD fanfic! I really just needed to get this thing out of my mind and I've been itching to write a Daryl/OC story. This is just my first time in this category okay? So I apologize in advance if there are mistakes in this chapter and in the future chapters.

I have other stories in my other account. (If ever my beta finds out about me being my other username here in fanfiction, I'm dead meat)

**DISCLAIMER: The Walking Dead belongs to the amazing Frank Darabont. Even if I turn into a walker, I won't ever own it. **

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**We Remain**

Nothing was ever fair in this world. Why did Cleo, of all people, have to be the one left alive? She wanted to die but something always stopped her. But without her loved ones and family, was life still worth living? Thousands of nightmares haunted her day and night and finally, she decided to end everything. Walkers about to devour her whole flesh and body, she did not make a move—until a man saved her from her own death.

Daryl/OC

Genre: Horror, Action, Romance, Survival

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I. Lost and Found

"_Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up."_

_-Sarah Oakler_

000

"_Survive, Cleo… no matter what… survive." _

Those were his last words to her before he pulled the trigger. It has been three weeks since his passing, and day and night, his words haunted her endlessly. Right after he died in front of her eyes, all that she ever did was escape from those dead things who ate her fiancé. On that same night, she wanted to put the bullet straight to her brain, but when she did… she realized that her handgun was nothing but an empty case.

"…_survive_."

Cleo wanted to erase his last words to her. She wanted to end everything right now but his words kept stopping her from doing so.

Is still there a point of living? Surviving?

She was all alone in this world. No matter how hard she tries, she knew that one of these days she'll die with those things around.

She had nothing else left but her own life. Her parents—dead. Fiance—dead. Brother—dead.

Believe it or not, she has survived three straight weeks on her own without anything but a hand knife. All that's left for her to protect was her own life so she didn't care much if her weapon was not secured enough. If she would die, then she'd die. If she would live, then she'd live. If there was a chance to escape, she'd escape. If there was none, so be it. But anytime, she was willing to accept death with open arms.

Cleo found a stream along her journey. She's been staying there for three days now, and she managed to live by water and a couple of berries she found nearby. But she was thinner, paler, and weaker than she already was. She gathered a pool of water in her palms and she damped her ebony black hair. She removed her bun and let her wavy black hair fall on her small back as she cleaned her face in dirt of mud. Lifting the long sleeves of her light red tunic, she ran her damp hands to her slightly tanned skin from her arms up to her neck.

It was one of these nights that she would live peacefully in this place. No one had found her yet, and she never wanted to be found by anyone who'd harm her, especially those zombie people that did nothing but kill the living and turn them into something like _them. _But she was still cautiously trying to find her way out of the woods.

When she was done cleaning herself, she tied her long wavy hair back into a simple pony tail and she wore her black cotton jacket above her tunic. She wore back her boots to her newly cleaned feet and pulled down her black skin tight jeans. The small bed which she made from fallen leaves was already ready for service. All she had to do was lie down and try to get some goodnight sleep. Though, she never really managed to sleep ever since this madness started.

Before she could go back to her improvised bed, she had heard noises from behind the bushes. Noises that she never ever wanted to hear in her life again. But who was she kidding? As long as she lives, she would always see those zombified creatures who brought the death of her fiancé.

A zombie came out of the bush, desperately making its way towards her. Cleo immediately jumped up to her feet and grabbed for the knife—wait, where was the knife?

Her face was drained out of color when she saw it was beside her small backpack nearby her leafy bed. Apparently, the horrid creature was stepping on it while it desperately tried to reach her.

"Crap." Cleo muttered under her breath. She backed away the mini stream and tried to look for a substitute weapon. She continued backing away until she was at the other side of the stream. Still, she couldn't find anything concrete to defend herself from the zombie. Everything went down for her when she saw two other zombies coming out of the bush where the first one came out. It left her no other choice but to leave her bag and flee, but what are the odds? Right behind her appeared another zombie, much to her surprise, it nearly got her. She clumsily ran away for dear life, but she was welcomed by another one as she entered the deeper part of the forest.

Where did they come from all of a sudden?!

She continued to run away, relying on her feet to wherever place it brought her. All she wanted was to get away from them. She could still hear their gurgling noises, indicating that they were still chasing after her. Since the daylight was already gone, she couldn't clearly see the path she was taking. She hoped that those monsters were in the same boat as her so they'd lose their tracks.

But of all the dumbest thing that could happen to the process of escaping, it happened to her.

An enlarged root caught her feet and it badly caught her ankle from her fall. It was safe to assume that she didn't sprain or twist her ankle. She grimaced in pain as she hit down the land, but she immediately forgot the pain on her ankle when the zombies caught up to her. She tried pushing herself away, but a vine from the root caught her feet. She struggled to break free until the vine was already wounding her soft flesh.

The lurker was just yards away from her and she was still stuck without any weapons to defend her.

And then realization hit her hard to the core.

Maybe this was it…

Maybe this was her end.

This was her death.

If she were to die right now…

"NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

Cleo screamed on top of her lungs and she saw a rock big enough to crash the zombie's brain. The zombie fell on top of her as he aimed for the flesh on her neck, Cleo used the rock the block its teeth, and somehow, she managed to push it away to her side and crash the hard stone against its deformed skull.

If she were to die right now... she won't let herself transform into one of those things. This is not the death that she wanted!

But there were still others coming. Judging from the distance, they would definitely hover over her at the same time. She was confident that she could bring down one of them, but she knew that the other could have its way to bite her flesh.

Tears started to form at the edge of her eyes.

Why did realization always come at the very nick of time?

For three weeks of surviving on her own in the woods and not encountering zombies from the shelter she found, she had always thought of ending her life. She had always thought that she was better off dead. That her life was meaningless without her family.

But here she was right now, getting what she wished for.

Death.

And it was too late to realize that she wanted to continue surviving.

That she wanted to continue…_living. _

_No… NOOO! _

Cleo screamed in her mind as she braced herself from the attack. It might be her sure death, but she wouldn't go down without a fight. The stone was in her hands, and whoever she could manage to crush, she'll do it with all her strength.

But all of a sudden, she heard a quick swishing sound from the distance. And the next thing she saw was a pointed arrow striking through the back of the zombie's head up to his left eye socket. It expectedly fell down from the accurate hit, and it landed on the floor just a few yards before her trapped feet. The other creature was also brought down by an arrow, and Cleo was left gaping at the man behind the zombies, firmly holding his crossbow.

"Holy shit."

Cleo heard him mutter with his husky low voice.

Her whole body was shaking and when she blinked her dark brown eyes, tears cascaded her face. The stone in between her hands numbly fell from her as she desperately looked into the man's eyes.

"…H-help me… p-please… h-help me…"

She could hardly make out the words she said, and her vision started getting blurry from her tears. The man made his way towards her, his crossbow still ready for his defense.

"Daryl! Are you okay?" came a foreign voice from a distance.

The man with the crossbow replied with a simple, "Yeah!" without tearing his gaze away from Cleo.

Since Cleo never had decent food except for berries and water, she could feel her body's weakness taking over her body once the adrenaline was gone. Before she could continue to plead for the man to help her, darkness already clouded her mind.

To be continued…

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**Author's note:  
**

So that's it for the first chapter! Please tell me what you think and give this story a chance. I'm following the storyline of the show, by the way. It starts from season 1. Oh God, I miss season 1.

And the title of this story came from Christina Aguilera's song **We Remain **from her album **_Lotus._**It's also the song for **The Hunger Games: Catching Fire **as we all know. :)

Feel free to review as long as it's not a flame. Thanks for reading! I'll have the next chapter uploaded soon.

LONG LIVE THE NERDS! Whoo!


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